changes. big changes in our climate, so the next president will have to deal with that. and if you elect romney, he's going to be heading a political party who doesn't believe it's heading a political party that doesn't believe it's a problem. >> thank you for being on the "ed show." the rachel maddow show is next. >> thanks, ed, happy halloween. my halloween costume again this year is middle-agedle lesles ll lesbian in a cheap jacket. it's halloween where ever it can be halloween. this year it is not everywhere

because it cannot be. governor christie postponed it. it will be moved to monday, november 5th to protect new jersey's young trick or treaters. crews were fixes falling power lines. nearly two million households in new jersey are still without electricity today. in reference of how much of the country that means, even if there was one person in each household without pour, even if it was just one, it would mean there are more people in day three of no power in just new jersey than the population of each of these states marked on the map. this is a huge number of

americans here. it's nots over, it's not done, it's not past tense. widespread flooding is still present. we talked about hoboken last night. it's directly across the hudson river. it's small but has 50,000 people in it. as of last night, the mayor told through was as much as 20,000 people still stranded in deep, impassable, and increasingly polluted flood waters. the national guard did get to some of those people. we'll have more about that dramatic situation in just a moment. the national guard also arrived in swamped towns. a difficult time for those in

mobile home there's. also they rushed to the assistance of belleview hospital. 17 million gallons flooded their basement. we showed you a shot last night of employees creating a human chain to carry fuel to the roof. today the national guard used helicopters to fly fuel up the stairs. even with those heroic and exhausting efforts, the situation was more worse than expected and critical care patients were being evacuated one by one, and that evacuation is still going. >> today also afforded a clear and heroing look.

and in queens, a fire burns down 111 houses as flood waters kept firefighters out. a lot of firefighters live in breezy point, and now this. a series of natural gas fires also broke out in a new jersey shoretown, thand firefighters we unable to put these fires out because of debris blocking their path. and long lines and gridlock coming from gas stations with power and gas. three helicopter shifts were delivered and they provide he needsing platforms for any

helicopter that's are assisting in the relief effort if need be. the new york police department today released this rather amazing vehicle of helicopter search and rescue tombs. staten island now stands at 12 out of a growing death toll of about 60 americans. chris christie was with president obama today, touring some of the communities in ruin along the shoreline. both politicians and leaders going out of their way to emphasize that day three of this natural disaster is still no time for partisan politics. >> i want to thank the president. we spent a significant afternoon

together, surveying the coastline. we were on marine one together, and we had an opportunity to discuss it it at length. go to the shelter, have him see people's concerns. we have lots of challenges. challenges now to get back to normalcy. so we need to get power restored as quickly as possible. make sure people have clean drinks water. hospitals are taken care of, and that we get kids back to school. i'm pleased to report that he has sprung into action immediately to help give us those things while we're in the car riding together. he worked incredibly closely with me since before the storm hit. i think this is our sixth

conversation since the weekend, it's been a great working relationship to make sure that we're doing the jobs that people elected us to do. and i cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern, compassion for our state and for the people of our state. and i heard on the phone conversations with him and i was able to witness it today personally. >> we're here for you and we will not forget. we will follow up to make sure that you get all of the help that you need until you rebuild. at this point, our main focus is on the states of new jersey, which got hit harder than anybody. the state of flork, particularly lower manhattan and long island. we're very concerned about some situations in connecticut as well, and we're still monitoring west virginia where there are heavy snows in some inaccessible

areas. those areas are bearing the brunt of this storm. we have been able to stage commodities, water, power generators, ambulances in some cases, food, medical supplies, emergency supplies, and over 2,000 personnel on the ground right now. their job now that we're moving out of the search and rescue faze, is that they're going out and talking to individual communities to they know how to get the help they need. >> the governor spent the rest of the day doing storm response with president obama. as you can see, this is a shoreline district fronting the new york harbor.

i know this has been a difficult past couple days, what kind of damage are you seeing in your district? >> it's all kinds of damage. i mentioned union beach to you. three or four blocks from the bay, the storm surge came in and the waves were pounding on top of the houses. somehow it just washed away completely. i had never seen anything like that before. there are other place where's almost the entire town was under water, almost up to the second floor of the homes and they don't see to be habitable any more. you have towns that were wiped out. i came, i apologize from being dressed this way, i saw the natural gas explosion, we had a gas explosion that wiped out five homes adjacent to each other. and i was talking to the people

there. as the storm surge came in, i guess it knocked off the boiler on the tank, and a house went up in flames and four other houses. >> we think back about katrina and what a big impact that was on our country, we rarely think about the wind and the rain that was the initial storm, we think of the aftermath. right now we're in the aftermath period in terms of sandy. tell me how you feel about that. and before we get to rebuilding, people taking care of continuing damage right now, how do you assess the coordination between the state, federal, and local municipalities? >> i think we're doing very well. i think the president's response has been terrific, really. it's been coordinated unlike some of what happened in

katrina. and you heard governor christie, who is a republican with president obama working together, and that's how it's been from the president, to the governor, to the counties and the towns. one of the things that i did today was talk to fema about trying to get an office and staff person in various parts of the district today, and they're working on it, and with the money that comes to downs for recovery to rebuild board walks or municipal buildings, i think there is a 25% state and local match. so we ask that that be waived. many of the towns are small and can't afford that. so there's a lot of cooperation going on. >> when you're making those calls, someone is answering your call and you're getting responses -- >> i literally called the fema

while i walked into the nbc building today and they called me back in ten minutes. >> i know you were personally evacuated, i know you're back without power, good luck to you, stay in touch. >> thank you. >> for reference, this is the sixth district in new jersey, do we have that map? there we go, it's marked in red there where, of course, we have seen some of the worst devastation from this crisis. last night live we had a shocking moment in a live conversation with a very hard hit town, this is what happened, this is don zimmer. >> probably half of our city is flooded. we have about 20,000 people that still remain in their homes, and we're trying to put together an

evacuation plan, get the equipment here, trying to ask the national guard to come in and help us and bring the equipment we need, and we're begging and pleading the national guard to give us the equipment. >> and had this is not a situation that is in the past where hoboken went something bad and you're reflecting, it's on going, and just to be clear mayor zimer, how many do you think are still stranded? >> i would day 20,000 to 25,000. >> they were in need of rescue that night, then. you could hear the upset and the determination in the mayor's voice that this needed a response. now, not theoretically, but now. many of the people were unable

to get to safety through several feet of water that was mixed with sewage. the water could also be in contact with exposed live power lines. and at 11:01, the city of hoboken sent out this tweet, the national guard has arrived! 12 vehicles made it through the deep flood waters to start assessing their needs. they're first priority was getting the most vulnerable people out, and then who to help next. the devastation from the air revealed how muched there was to do. one stranded resident showing what that looks like from his

doorstep. they rescued stranded people. some rescued with their puts, very large pets. getting folks to friends or emergency shelters, others were able to rich rides out on boats. on the dry side of the city, neighbors are banding together, they created makeshift shell phone charging stations for their neighbors to use. this is on going. the mayor warns with only one nonworking pump station to drain an estimated 500 million gallons of water, the process will take a couple days. hoboken is still in bad shape wechb even with the national guard and fema on the seen. this town show that's the storm was one crisis, the aftermath of the storm is another in the most

densely populated area in the united states of america, we'll keep you updated as we learn more.

it is six days to the election, with the biggest population center in the united states engulfed in the aftermath of an unprecedented natural disaster. what the two candidates for president did on this sixth day before the election is an important study in contrast. that's ahead.

governor christie, throughout this process, has been responsive. he's been aggressive in making sure that the state got out in front of this incredible storm, and i think the people of new jersey recognized that he has put his heart and soul into making sure that the people in

new jersey bounce back, even stronger than before. so i just want to thank him for his extraordinary leadership and partnership. >> president obama spent part of the day today in coastal new jersey, along with new jersey's republican governor, chris christie. >> he has worked incredibly closely with me, since before the storm hit. i think this is our sixth conversation, since the weekend, and it's been a great working relationship, to make sure that we're doing the jobs that people elected us to do. and i cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern and compassion for our state and for the people of our state. >> you know, you would expect in a disaster this big that a president would be standing alongside and directing storm response with the governor from the state most affected by the disaster. i mean, generically speaking, this sort of appearance is not a remarkable concept. this thing becomes remarkable, though, to see president obama and chris christie standing

together and praising one another and talking about the ways they are working together, and seeing their coordinated state and federal disasters, this sort of thing becomes remarkable today, only because president obama is a democrat, and chris christie is a republican, and chris christie specifically is a republican who has been a very caustic partisan critic of president obama, in his role as a campaign surrogate for mitt romney, who president obama is running against, in a presidential election that ends in six days. mitt romney and that campaign today, that campaign that chris christie has been supporting, they made a somewhat remarkable decision to go ahead and keep campaigning, today, to get back on the campaign trail and start doing partisan campaign rallies again, even while the president was still suspending his own schedule, so he could respond to the storm. so what we saw today, in split screen, was president obama departing the white house en route to storm-ravaged new jersey, after he stopped in at fema headquarters, and at the same time, mitt romney in

full-on campaign mode in tampa, florida. and then it was president obama touring coastal new jersey and comforting victims of hurricane sandy, while mitt romney was holding what he called a big victory rally outside miami. and while the romney campaign made sure to have their most telegenic staffers say on camera today that they were going to avoid any partisan commentary today out of respect for the storm victims, they said they were going to avoid any partisan attacks on president obama on this very serious day, they said they would do that, but they apparently really did not mean it, because at a rally in wisconsin today, they had the republican party chairman talking about how america needs to fire barack obama, and saying that the battle to defeat president obama is a battle for this country's freedom. at aally with mitt romney in florida today, they had that state's former republican governor, jeb bush, talking about president obama as a failure, his failure to bring this country together. at the same event, we had a republican state congressman tell parents that they should

threaten to take halloween candy away from any children of obama supporters that they know tonight. he suggested it. i think the idea was he said that obama is a redistributionist, and so you can scare kids and their obama-supporting parents about redistribution if you steal the kids' candy. that was the tenor of the romney campaign today. even as they told the press corps that they were going to be very respectful and nonpartisan and refrain from attacking the president today. it was just a remarkable, remarkable day. a remarkable decision. i mean, president obama is expected to restart his campaign schedule tomorrow. but mr. romney did not want to wait for that. he started his campaign events today. i'm sorry, are you stuck doing something else? i'll take advantage of that? i'll get back on the campaign trail, i'm heading to florida. apparently you're otherwise occupied. well, i'm not. it's remarkable. it is a remarkable decision to restart his campaign today. but honestly, it is also remarkable that mr. romney never really stopped campaigning in

the first place. we reported yesterday on this event that mr. romney held in dayton, ohio, yesterday afternoon. it was the event that had previously been billed as a victory rally in dayton. with the president off the campaign trail entirely to deal with the crisis, the romney campaign realized it would be coarse to keep campaigning. the campaign's communications director put out a statement on monday saying that the romney campaign was going to be canceling all campaign events, "out of sensitivity to the millions of americans in the path of hurricane sandy." see, they realized like they had to seem like they were being sensitive to the crisis. but they really, really wanted to hold that rally in dayton. so what do you do? how do you promise to cancel your political rallies in order to seem sensitive, but then hold your rallies anyway? well, in the case of dayton yesterday, and mitt romney, they held the same event, at the same time, in the same venue, with the same celebrity, and they showed the same vote for mitt romney campaign video from the republican convention, but they just changed the name of the event. they called it a storm relief

event, instead of calling it a victory rally. the one thing they changed materially about the campaign rally in order to make people call it a storm relief event is that they asked people to bring canned goods and groceries as donations to the red cross. one of the problems with this, as we talked about on last night's show, is that that's not actually the right way to donate to the red cross. i mean, the desire to give groceries and canned goods at the time of a natural disaster comes from the right place, it is a nice impulse, but unless you're specifically requested by relief agencies or public officials to do that, donating canned goods and groceries is just not logistically helpful,s on a large scale and from across country, especially if you are a presidential candidate getting national press, implicitly telling the whole country this is the way to help, this is what everybody ought to be doing. i'm not just giving you my opinion on this. this is explicitly what the red cross says about donations on their website. they make clear, under their frequently asked questions on their website, that while they

are grateful for any kind of thing people want to help, they don't actually except donations like that. the way you actually can help them is to donate blood or donate money. of course, having mitt romney do a photo op where people handed him money, people handed him checks probably would not make as good a photo op as people handing him bags of cans. so the romney campaign set up a photo op where people could hand him bags of cans. buzz feed reporter mckay coffins was at that event and added some important detail today to how it all went down. amazing story. apparently the campaign was worried that people would not bring enough canned and stuff to donate, and that would mess up their planned photo op of mitt romney carrying canned goods. so, quoting buzz feed, the night before the event, campaign aides went to a local walmart and spent $5,000 on granola bars, canned foods, and diapers.

as supporters lined up to greet the romney, a young volunteer stood saying, you need a donation to get in line. one woman asked, what if we dropped our donations off up front. the volunteer gestured toward a pile of groceries conveniently stacked near the candidate and said, just grab something. two teenage boys retrieved a jar of peanut butter each, and got in line, when it was their turn, they handed their, quote, donations, to mr. romney. he took them, smiled, and offered an earnest "thank you." to be clear, the romney campaign held their campaign rally, kaup -- called it a storm relief event. they bought donations for the red cross, and then they handed those donations to their own supporters in order to photograph them handing them back to mitt romney, so it would look like he inspired generous donations from those people that he actually did not inspire. and if they had bothered to check with the red cross, they actually don't want.

and they certainly don't want it modeled as national behavior as for what the red cross want. again, the red cross, for the record, does not want your cans, they want your money and your blood donation, if you do actually want to help. i don't know what it looks like in a photo op, but you can text the word "red cross" to 90999. that will give a $10 to the red cross that you will see appear on your phone bill. you can do that right now as you are watching this show. text "90999", the word "red cross," and that actually will help. you can go to redcross.org and donate through their website. and you can donate blood at a blood drive in your local hometown. this is a real disaster. this is not a plot in a sitcom about how to run for president. this is a real disaster, an ongoing, affecting millions of americans. and real help really is needed. and that is not the same thing as using the suffering of millions of americans as an occasion to accrue political capital for yourself by trying to create the appearance that you are helping when you are not

bothering to actually try to really help. that is something very different. this is quite a time for the country, as you know. we're going through trauma in a major part of the country. the kind of trauma you've experienced here in florida more than once. and it's interesting to see how people come together, in a circumstance like this. now, people coming together, is also what's going to happen, i believe, on november 7th. >> pretty much equivalent. helping people who are suffering with their lives in danger because our fellow americans have been affected by a gigantic, national disaster in our biggest population center. pretty much the same thing as helping mitt romney get elected! pretty much the same thing, right? we all come together. right?

forgive my jeans. everyone who works on this show, including me, are living out of a suitcase. sorry, i forgot. anyway. these are some of the largest cities in america, by population. some of the largest metropolitan areas in america. there's the new york metro area, of course, with a combined population of 19 million people, larger than the population of all but four states in our country. then there's the los angeles metro, with almost 13 million people. there is miami, florida. there's boston, massachusetts. there's the san francisco bay area. there is seattle, up in washington state. there's san diego. there's tampa, florida in the st. petersburg area. there's baltimore, maryland. there's the virginia beach area, that metro area including norfolk. there is jacksonville, florida. and, of course, there is new orleans. so pop quiz. what do all of these large american cities have in common? you can cheat by looking at this map. what do all of these large american population centers have

in common? the answer is that all of these major american cities are right on the edge of america. right on the coastal edge, up next to the sea. now, you could also add even some more major cities to this list if you wanted to. places like philadelphia or washington, d.c. or houston or providence, rhode island. those are all sort of coastal cities, too, in the sense that they are near the coast and they're on waterways. just for the sake of argument, let's not even include those. let's just be narrowly focused here, talking narrowly about big populous metropolitan areas that are right up against the sea. if you add up the population of these cities on america's coastal edges, the population of just this america is more than 63 million people. that means more than one in five americans, that means roughly one in five americans, one out of every five people who can call themselves americans, lives in a metropolitan area that is right, directly on the coast. a population roughly equivalent to all the people who voted

either for john mccain or barack obama in 2008. one entire side of the voting population in this upcoming election is the portion of our country that lives on the edge. as we continue to cope with and rescue people from and now recover bodies from, the impact of this one storm on the most populated part of america's coastline today, the governor of new york state has been again and again trying to draw people's attention to this not being just one event, but a challenge for the whole country that events like this might now be happening with increased frequency. not just in new york, but in all of these heavily populated places, that before now had a fairly predictable relationship with the body of water, with the ocean, that they abut. what is that predictability? that balanced and expectation, developed over the past couple of centuries, and these cities on the water is now over. mostly this gets talked about in terms of the people denying that climate change is a real thing, and big talk about whether we should try to stop climate change and global warming.

but that may be getting resolved otherwise, as officials responsible for the 60 million americans who live on the edge of our country are just starting a practical discussion about there being a change in the frequency of extreme weather. >> climate change is, climate change is a controversial subject, right? people will debate whether or not there is climate change, whether or not it's a cycle, whether it's global warming. that's a whole political debate that i don't want to get into. i want to talk about the frequency of extreme weather situations. which is not political. the frequency of extreme weather situations is way up. right? we just went through hurricane irene, just over a year ago. and there's only so long you can say, well, this is once in a lifetime, and it will never happen again.

and then it happens again. then we say, this is once in a lifetime, now, really for sure, it's not going to happen again, then it happens again. i joke that we, every two years, we have a 100-year flood. i believe it is going to happen again. i pray that it's not, i believe that it is. >> because of this storm, we are experiencing a particularly nonpartisan moment in american politics. you've got the president touring the disaster site today with the republican governor, who previously had nothing nice to say about the president. but today they are obviously working together and working together well. there is answer expectation that people will put political fights aside for practical problem solving at times like this in our country. what that means, in nuts and bolts, in specifics, is next. [ female announcer ] with swiffer dusters,

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new york is the finest harbor in the atlantic ocean. just start there. it's so much more, it's an entrance into north america. >> new york cannot be understood aside from this geography.

indeed, no city could. be new york more so that almost any city in the river. because here you have what's really a natural location for a great city. it's probably one of the three greatest harbors in the world. and what's key is that at the very heart of new york is an island, manhattan. so that the indians, who were not in most places in the united states, in the early 17th century, were on the island of manhattan. because it was a natural location for a great city. >> that's a clip from the beginning of the definitive documentary about new york city, rick burns' "new york," a documentary film. as a natural location for a city, new york was sociologically and politically shaped by countless waves of new immigrants. but fundamentally, new york has always been a city shaped by water. the long, skinny island of brooklynn and queens to its east, staten island five miles south of long island. and the bronx, the only part of new york city on the american mainland, itself surrounded by

water on three sides. if this week's megastorm is not just a once in a lifetime event, but a once every few years event, then the whole country is faced with the question of how our largest american city, our biggest population center, our economic capital as a nation will defend itself. it's a city built on water. what happens when our relationship with that water changes fundamentally? joining us now is documentary filmmaker, rick burns. mr. burns, thank you very much for being here. so happy you could come. >> pleased to be here, rachel. >> new york city became an industrial center and became what it is, in large part because of its natural geography. do you think new york city is prepared to face a changing environment? >> you know, i think, arguably, it's a hard question to answer, but i think arguably more than any other place in the country, i mean, new york geography has been destiny for new york, but i think more so for here. i think we're moving now into a new phase of its history.

we have been for some time, but i think that sandy underscores it really, really dramatically. with san francisco and hong kong, one of the three greatest deepwater ports in the world. that's why new york became new york. a thousand ships. the dutch could see it in the 17th century, could ride and anchor in new york harbor. anchor in new york harbor. new yorkers had an extraordinary ability to leverage from the start, that geography. so i'm not content with the geography that nature had given them in the early 19th century. they went out and built the eerie canal, a 363-mile ditch that connected new york harbor and the great lakes. so not only do they have the greatest natural port in the western hemisphere, everything grown, mined, harvested, now had to come down right by the battery that was flooded three days ago. i think the first age of new york was the new york that the harbor provided and the second

age of new york was the one that the canal provided. and i think we're in the third age of new york. now this is kind of a blowback taking place. but i think that new york has always been pioneering, because of these extraordinary geographical advantages and the surge of population and commerce has taken place here, it's been on the forefront of new things, new people, new ideas, new products, new markets. but it's also been on the forefront since the beginning of new problems. it has sort of pioneered new urban problems, new ways of crowding people together in tenements, new ways of not having water for people, not being able to provide them with jobs. so what's that meant is from the start, new york has always been pioneering new solutions, not because new yorkers are better, but because, quite often, they just got there first. we're the petri dish. >> this is most of why i wanted to talk to you. because i felt like what's happening here, and this came up with new orleans in a different way, in terms of what's happening with katrina. but what's happening here, as a

country, we are realizing that we have a problems that our politics is not up to at the national level. but so much of what is right about public policy, especially that affects geographic areas, that affects big swaths of our country in terms of the land is innovated by people who are forced there, despite politics. >> that's absolutely right. it's no a democrat, it's not a republican thing. it's circumstances, partly sort of by different geography, and partly human made. i mean, we caused these problems. in the case of new york, it has constantly trying to find out new ways to connect itself to itself. so it builds a subway system, it finds new ways to shelter its infrastructure from storms. blizzard of 1988, all of new york's telegraph and brand-new telephone are aboveground. where do they go. underground. and at the very same time, new yorkers became aware that you couldn't have public transportation all aboveground. it was too in jeopardy by the weather. what do they build? a subway system. well, as of 1904, here we are, a little more than a century later, dealing with a new set of problems, caused very much by the culture that new york's in

the vanguard of. a fantastically successful commercial culture, which now has the ability to reach out and not just build an erie canal, it can reach out and change the climate of the entire globe? what are you going to do in that situation? find new, non-ideological, nonpolitical ways to find new mechanisms, structural, infrastructural, to deal with the consequences of your collective behavior. here's the thing. those kind of solutions cannot be privatized. that's what we know. they are, by definition, public and collective problems, and the solutions need to come publicly and collectively. and new york has, again, not because new yorkers are better, but just because the problems have come so fast and thick here, has more experience with dealing with those kind of large, macro problems, when they're generated by human beings. and therefore, i feel, at the risk of sounding pollyannish, i feel that the great silver lining of this immense storm system is going to be that it

happened here, and new yorkers are used to thinking outside their own box, to creating not just a manhattan, but a greater new york, that's five boroughs wide, and creating the first kind of like, you know, megalopolis, stretching up and down the east coast. now they're having to think, we're going to have to think, collectively, as a city, as a state, as a nation, of how we invent infrastructure to deal with the consequences of our own prosperity. >> rooting this challenge and what we're going through right now in the historical and can-do public capacity of new york is for me, very grounding and very helpful and it's why i wanted to talk to you tonight. rick burns, currently working on an update to "new york: a documentary film." >> that's exactly right. >> rick burns, great to have you here. thank you very much. we'll be right back.

okay. campaign news ahead. ohio, that thing that just whizzed by your ear, that was any sense of restraint flying by you and out the window. that story's ahead. we do have one other

we do have one other important news story tonight from the world of politics to report in just a moment but i do want to show you something first. so there's this blackout zone covering a huge portion of america's largest city right now. almost all of lower manhattan in new york city without power for two full days now and counting. if you have ever looked at the manhattan skyline at night, it's always studded with light. right? like the empire state building in all her glory earlier tonight. but if you pan from north to south, suddenly it seems as if the video has gone black.

look at this. oh. this was shot this evening by an nbc cameraman standing on a rooftop on the demarcation line between the half of the island that has power and the half of it that does not. here's what the manhattan bridge connecting lower manhattan to brooklyn looks like right now. most if not all of brooklyn did not lose power. so the brooklyn half of the bridge is illuminated. and then slam, the manhattan side is not. frank sinatra never sang any songs about a new york city that looks like this. we will be right back. mobile is. [ "everybody have fun tonight" plays ] really catching on! people can do it all! get a quote, buy and manage your policy! -[ music stops ] -it's great! well, what's with the... -[ music resumes ] -music? ♪ have fun tonight dude. getting a car insurance quote. i'll let it go to voicemail. [ clears throat ] ♪ everybody wang chung tonight ♪ putting it on vibrate. [ cell phone vibrates ] -[ loud vibrating ] -it'll pass. [ vibrating continues ] our giant store and your little phone. that's progressive mobile.

new storm footage. you can see the water rushing in, the streets are flooding. if i asked you where this footage was taken-war would you say? the jersey shore? connecticut? no, actually, this is cleveland, ohio. 500 miles from the atlantic coast. this was shot yesterday. sandy knocked out power for

250,000 people in and around cleveland for three days at least. sandy's having a real real local impact on ohio residents' lives. but sandy's march through ohio also has a national impact because ohio, of course, is the most crucial of all the swing states. ohio, for example-s big on early voting. they camp out for it there. as sandy approached, ohio counties reported even heavier than usual early voting, with people rushing to cast their ballots ahead of the storm. lots of things are amazing about ohio's politics, but frankly, what i find most amazing in ohio this year is the way the romney campaign is choosing to close out their campaign there. remember when mr. romney campaigned on that flat out lie that president obama's getting rid of a work requirement for welfare, even though president obama did no such thing? well, now mr. romney is back with a new ad in ohio with that same old lie about welfare. they brought it back for the end of the campaign. romney campaign sent senator norm coleman from minnesota to ohio to tell voters there that mitt romney had no intention of overturning roe versus wade even though mitt romney himself says he would do everything he could to overturn roe versus wade. he said if that happened be he would be delighted to sign a bill banning all abortion at the federal level. last week in ohio mr. romney made a mistake, an out and out gaffe.

>> i saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, jeep, now owned by the italians, is thinking of moving all production to china. >> not true. totally false. jeep is not doing that. the day mitt romney told that made-up horror story to ohio voters chrysler had already announced that actually they were expanding. in ohio and in michigan. they weren't pulling out. mitt romney responded to the instant fact checking not by taking it back but by turning that lie into a new ad for ohio. and then he bought extra air time for it in toledo, where ohio workers make jeeps and where being told falsely that your job's being shipped to china might be personally terrifying news. chrysler tried again to set mr. romney straight on this saying, "jeep production will not be moved from the united states to china." did mr. romney take it back? no. he turned it into another ad, a radio ad, again for ohio. and he expanded it to say the entire auto bailout has been a huge failure. that drew another company into

the fact check, gm, which had been saved of course by the auto bailout. a gm spokesman telling the press, "we've clearly entered some parallel universe." also from gm, "at this stage we're looking at hubble telescope-like distances between campaign ads and reality." but here's the thing. it is one thing to lie about your record or even your opponent's record. but what mr. romney has done here is to lie about a third party. in that third party's back yard. and you can tell that mr. romney's ohio lie about jeep is not going to work in ohio in part because ohio voters follow the car industry like it's the local football team. the romney campaign's running these ads in youngstown, for example. take a look at the "youngstown vindicator." the kind of reporting they were doing back in july on a local plant. "i think part of this relates to our focus on quality and make sure parts are right so we don't pass problems further up the line," said somebody's cousin. here's the youngstown paper in august on a plant expanding. "good news would be welcomed at the plant where recent months have seen rumors of production cuts and whether plant's third shift was in peril."

call aunt nelly and tell her we're going to be fine. when gm workers get transferred or walkway it's hometown news. in ohio it's your sister-in-law, it's your dad, it's you, right? look at this in the dleedo blade. the most read story today in the blade. in this town where mitt romney is running his madeup story about chrysler and jeep. number one, marchionne refutes romney's statement. would you know who this unidentified marchionne enough to make this the most popular story in your paper? the toledo blade knows who this is. when chrysler ceo marchionne says they're not moving jobs to china that is big town home town pamer news and when you as a candidate lie to the hometown crowd about the hometown news you cannot expect that lie to float. and it is not floating. the "columbus dispatch fact check" says, "oh, boy." cleveland plain dealer's er89 says "flailing in ohio romney rolls out jeep ploy." say what want about mr. romney's